Chaotic Systems
by Eponymous Rose
Summary: There's nothing like the end of the world to make you reevaluate your priorities; Leonard McCoy has second thoughts.


Leonard McCoy knows he's in trouble when even the ice in his bourbon starts to look like planets, stark against the backdrop of space, floating in the unknown, unprotected.

The bar's a little hole in the wall he'd discovered as a cadet - he'd always claimed it as a sort of refuge when classes got too stressful, or when Jim was off on some harebrained scheme, or when he started thinking too much about what he'd left behind, how far he'd had to go to manage it. The bartender's not the type to listen to anyone spill their guts, but at least he's a constant presence next to the bar, polishing glasses with an old rag, using his three extra arms to rearrange the more dubious bottles whenever a particularly keen inspector makes his way to this neck of the woods. Most importantly, there's real Kentucky bourbon, distilled the old-fashioned way - none of this half-replicated junk - and it's a glass of home, with all the little victories and bigger defeats that come with it.

It hurts like hell, coming here, but sometimes the alternative is worse.

"I saw a planet die," McCoy says, and the words feel unreal, experimental on his tongue. The ice settles with a resounding crack. "Billions of people wiped out, just like that."

"Altair water, please," says a voice to his right, and he turns to see a Vulcan propping himself on the stool beside him. He can't help staring; this one must be incredibly old, even by Vulcan standards, and, stranger still, there's a subtle, self-deprecating note of humor in his voice. "Is this seat taken?"

"Knock yourself out," says McCoy, and he's nearly disappointed when the Vulcan doesn't even try to take the idiom literally. "But if you're just drinking Altair water, seems like a bit of a waste."

"I assure you, I will make good use of the seat," the Vulcan says.

McCoy waves a hand. "Altair water for my friend, here," he says, grandly. "Put it on my tab."

One of the bartender's eyestalks swivels in their direction, and a hunch of the complicated shoulders telegraphs: _Message received, understood, and ignored until I'm good and finished here._

"So," says McCoy, and wonders what Vulcans do for small-talk. _Done anything logical lately? How are your equations looking?_ "What brings you here?"

"Oh," says the Vulcan, "I had a suspicion I'd encounter an old friend."

"Didn't show up?"

"Not precisely." The corner of the Vulcan's lip twitches into something like a smile, and McCoy is startled at the show of emotion until he thinks of Spock - the emotionless, pointy-eared bastard to end all emotionless, pointy-eared bastards - throwing himself into that last, desperate attempt at a rescue for his parents, letting Jim goad him and goad him, beaming back onto that transporter platform with the look of somebody who never once expected to survive.

"Sorry," says McCoy, and feels himself getting flustered under the cool gaze that settles on him. "I mean- God, that feels inadequate, doesn't it? I was aboard the _Enterprise_. I saw the planet go."

"I know," says the Vulcan, and for a moment McCoy feels like he's the one being comforted. "We have lost a great deal."

McCoy figures he's probably not just talking about the Vulcan race. "Yeah," he says, and takes a swallow of bourbon.

The bartender weaves his way over with the Altair water at long last, which the Vulcan accepts with all the dignity accorded a fine vintage. "You are a Starfleet officer, then?"

"Not anymore," says McCoy, for the first time, and he's surprised at how much it hurts. "No way in hell I'm going back there. Figure I'll get aboard a trader ship, do a little something that doesn't involve the end of the world, put up my shingle on some nice little colony and cure the common cold. Hell, maybe I'll go home, see what I can do about being a good father to Jo. My ex would probably have a heart attack." He pauses. "Say, that's worth considering."

The Vulcan is staring at him, piercing, calculating. "You have resigned?"

"Not yet." McCoy raises his glass. "Drowning my sorrows, first. You gotta do these things in the right order."

"Ah," says the Vulcan, and casts a meaningful glance at the empty bar. "Alone?"

"My friend Jim's got problems of his own," says McCoy. "They're either going to lynch him or promote him, and I'm not sure which would be the more dangerous proposition." He shrugs. "But that's Jim Kirk for you - had to go and save us all, just to prove he could. Him and that green-blooded sonuvabitch."

The Vulcan beside him chokes on his water, and McCoy's nearly ready to attempt his first-ever cross-species Heimlich by the time he catches his breath. "My apologies," he wheezes. "I believe I should pay closer attention when I drink at my age."

"Yeah, sure," says McCoy. "You all right?"

The Vulcan's eyes meet his, and there's something impossibly old about them, something beyond a mere lifetime of sorrows and joys, something a bit like the first time McCoy saw a nebula out in space, the start of a new star, life among the shadows. "No," he says. "But I will be."

McCoy finds himself shivering, though the bar is always maintained at a temperature more reminiscent of Georgia than the too-cold of a starship, and drains his glass to hide his shaking. "Okay," he says, and gets to his feet. "I should get going - got some packing to do. Nice meeting you."

The hand comes out fast, snatches at his wrist, and McCoy feels a stupid, irrational surge of terror - _touch-telepaths, they're touch-telepaths and they'll know your mind, know everything, and of course this one's not quite right in the head to start with, and hell, the bartender's gone, and if this is planned_-

"Please wait," says the Vulcan, and his hand is warm, burning through the uniform sleeve. "Doctor, please reconsider."

"What the hell are you talking about?" McCoy tries to tug his arm away, but it doesn't budge; the Vulcan may be old, but he's got a hell of a grip. "Let go of me!"

"Please understand me," says the Vulcan, and he's being so calm and reasonable that McCoy feels his terror ratchet up a notch, and fumbles for his glass with the other hand. The grip is still preternaturally warm, so strong that McCoy has little doubt the other man could snap his arm like a twig. "Dr. McCoy, your fear is amplifying to the point where I cannot maintain a block through the link, and you are risking excessive emotional feedback - you must control-"

The glass slips from his nerveless fingers, clattering back onto the bar. "How the hell do you know my name? What are you, some kind of Vulcan assassin-for-hire?"

The Vulcan's expression slips into something perilously like a wry smile. "No, but I-"

"Then get your hands off me!"

"My apologies, doctor, but I believe this is the only way to make you understand," says the Vulcan, and his other hand comes up towards McCoy's face.

And then McCoy feels the surge of emotion, the wave of everyday almost-smiles and hesitancies and quiet, secret terrors, and it's all wrapped up in dying, every cell burning, reaching through the glass for someone, something, and _finding_ it, in the end, touching and feeling and feeling again, death as a beginning, as a start, born again and again from the flames. "Oh, God," he says, but that's not it, because somewhere there's a planet where the sands are hotter than hell, and they're standing shoulder-to-shoulder, united against something, anything, everything, and it's always on their own two feet, flaws and all, finding forever in the starlit sky.

"I can only ask," says the Vulcan. "For him. For me. Please consider staying."

And he thinks of the planet, swallowing itself, a snake eating its own tail, a snake in the grass, a snake crawling up the Aesculapian staff, and feels his vision blurring, going dark. "All those people," he says, but the words are slurred, whispered.

"You helped save many more," the Vulcan says, and his grip is slackening, but this time it comes with a sense of loss, of emptiness, and McCoy reaches out again, blindly. "As a mutual friend would say, you never know until you try, Bones."

And McCoy sinks back, his heart pounding so loud in his ears that it drowns everything out.

He doesn't dream.

* * *

"Bones? _Bones_?"

The voice is like a dash of cold water to the face, and McCoy feels a wash of remembered fear, of wonder, of-

Someone grabs his shoulder as he tries to push himself to his feet, and that someone has a particularly familiar smirk. "Whoa, hang on. Little early to be this shitfaced, isn't it?"

"Funny, that's what I was just thinking," McCoy says, and manages, through some miracle, to hoist himself back onto his barstool. The world chooses that moment to take an unfortunate tilt, and, with a groan, he lets his head rest against the bar. "What the hell happened?"

"Could it have been, I don't know, the bourbon?" Jim is toying with a glass, and at a glance McCoy takes in the suppressed smirk, the way he's practically bouncing on his toes, and starts to get very nervous.

"No, but there was a Vulcan here," he says, and squints at the empty stool to his right. "I think."

"Right," says Jim, and grins. "You haven't asked what I'm doing here."

McCoy waits for him to come into focus again, then blinks. "Wait. What _are_ you doing here? I didn't think you knew about this place."

"Okay, so I tried a few other bars before this one," Jim says, and McCoy pinpoints a bit of the extra swagger in his friend's step. "Figure I could use the celebration, having made captain and all."

"Having made captain," says McCoy, in case it sounds less crazy a little slower. It doesn't.

"They're making the announcement later today," says Jim. "Got my own command and everything."

"Oh," says McCoy. "Okay, this might just be the bourbon talking, but - no, definitely not just the bourbon. What the hell?"

"It's the_ Enterprise_, Bones! They gave me the flagship!"

"Ah," says McCoy, cleverly, and grabs his glass back. "Maybe I need _more_ bourbon for this conversation to start making sense."

Jim crosses his arms, swivels on his stool. "Come on, Bones. I did kind of save the universe out there."

"Yeah, with help! On a wild chance that just happened to pay off! Do you have any idea how many things could have gone wrong?" McCoy sighs; Jim's expression is rapidly shifting from smug to annoyed. "Look, Jim, you know I'm happy for you. It just seems weird that they'd promote you so fast, especially since you don't actually seem to give a shit about protocol at the best of times."

Jim groans theatrically. "Don't remind me about all that paperwork I'm going to have to start doing. Anyway, I think Spock might have had something to do with the whole thing."

"Spock? Why the hell would he help you? Last I checked, he tried to strangle you-"

"Not that one," Jim says, too quickly, and stands up. "Bones, I'd like you to be my CMO."

There's a weird pressure at the back of McCoy's neck, a headache brewing, and everything goes a bit fuzzy for a second. "Aboard the _Enterprise_?"

Jim stares at him. "Well, you could set up shop in this bar, but I hear the commute's a bitch."

McCoy swallows, hard, and it takes a few seconds for him to find his voice again. "Jim, I-"

"Think about it, will you? I think I might need you out there." Jim gets to his feet, lays a few credits on the bar. "Look, have another one on me, okay? We'll talk about it later."

"Sure," says McCoy, because Jim's got that look, something way beyond the I'll-make-it-happen smirk, something older and wiser and_ knowing_, and, hell, Jim's never paid for a drink in his life.

The bartender comes back in just as Jim's heading out, about the same time as McCoy starts to feel a stupid little grin spreading across his face. "Hey, you see a Vulcan here earlier?"

"Maybe," the bartender says. "I can never tell you two-arms apart, anyway."

"Well, you see him again, you thank him for me, okay?" McCoy stands. "You, my friend, are looking at the U.S.S. _Enterprise_'s Chief Medical Officer."

"Bully for you," the bartender says.

Undaunted, McCoy shoves the credits across the bar. "Get yourself a drink on me."

The bartender stares. "My race can't metabolize ethanol."

"And you have yourself a great day," McCoy says, loudly, and heads for the door - the fuzziness in his head has faded, and he feels almost impossibly light on his feet, and he thinks, _This must be what it's like to be Jim Kirk_, and finds himself grinning, because somewhere, there are planets and people and ideas and dreams, things that are waiting for him, things that've been around forever and will keep right on going without him, and, for a wild, dizzying moment, he wants to see them all.

He steps out into the street and jogs after Kirk, into the new and uncertain future, into the sunlight.


End file.
